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Friday, December 14, 2007

New Google Analytics Features/Code (plus a simple fix for Blogger errors)

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The Google Analytics Team just released a of the popular site tracking software that sports a host of new features. Among them are the addition of metrics that provide comparison of various aspects of your site like visits and pageviews.

New in Analytics - comparison metrics


Along with these updates, the Analytics code has also been revamped and in order to gain access to newer features, you have to replace your old code. However if you copy and paste the code provided by the Analytics site into your Blogger template, Blogger will bug you about malformed code. Bummer.

Not to worry though, I've got a quick and easy fix right here.

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? " https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write("\<script src='" + gaJsHost + " google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'>\<\/script>" );
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-xxxxxx-x”);
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackVisit();
</script>


Notice the additional HTML code in red? Just add the red parts to your code, insert it into your blog template and you can be on your merry way.

For those wondering what that bit of code does, it's used to comment out javascript for browsers that don't support it. <!-- and --> are normal HTML comment tags, but //, which signifies a javascript comment, is added in front of --> to prevent javascript from parsing it and causing errors.

Apparently Blogger doesn't parse HTML comments (makes sense since it's not necessary), so by inserting these comment tags, Blogger ignores the javascript within these comment tags and allows you to publish it. Modern browsers however, will still be able to execute the javascript, giving you the best of both worlds.

Edit: Forgot to add that you can also test if you properly added the Analytics code by submitting your site to . Enter your email and site URL, choose to test for the new Analytics code, hit the submit button and wait for your results.

 

Free: Win/Mac DivX Pro Holiday Download

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For a limited time only, the DivX Pro Bundle is available for absolutely free! Normally priced at $19.99, the download includes the pro versions of DivX Codec and DivX Converter as well as the free DivX Player and DivX Web Player.

With the DivX Codec and DivX Converter, you will be able to playback DivX videos as well as encode videos into the DivX format, which can then be uploaded to Stage6 for sharing. These DivX videos will be compressed into smaller file sizes than the original files, but will retain much of their quality.

To take advantage of this offer, simply click on the appropriate link: |

Follow the instructions on the site to install DivX Pro and when prompted for a serial number, just copy and paste the listed codes below.

Serial Numbers

Windows DivX Pro serial

Windows: A3NI9M7P47B325A52C26


Mac DivX Pro serial
Mac: 338BSZ759249T26B2M9E



If you arrived at the party late, another alternative is to to your site and send the URL to DivX for a free copy of DivX Pro.

[via ]

 

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

AppJet - Create Web Apps in a Flash!

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AppJet

AppJet

Today is/was the launch of , a site that simplifies the creation of web applications. Based entirely on server-side javascript, AppJet applications are written with a combination of the core javascript language and their custom written libraries, which are relatively easy to pickup compared to other languages.

All you need to get started is your browser, as their browser based IDE includes syntax highlighting, preview and publishing features. Any app you write can be hosted for free on their site and a 10MB persistent storage is also provided if your application requires it.

AppJet IDE

As I browsed through the AppJet site, I decided to code a very simple app to see how long it would take, just to test out AppJet. ;) True enough, after about 30 minutes, I managed to finish . Much of my time was spent on reading the documentation and searching for relevant functions rather than coding.

A simple proxy uses the wget function to download the HTML of remote sites and spits that HTML back out into a div. It is very basic and will not retrieve anything other than text. If you happen to see images, you're downloading them from the originating server and not from AppJet.

After my short and pleasant experience with AppJet, I'm wondering if I should port over. It'll be neat to have data storage so that I can implement a last 5 charts feature or something similar.

 

Blog about PQ Talking Photo and Get It Free!

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Dicky @ PQ Computing Inc just emailed me about an excellent deal that they're currently offering. Simply talk about in your blog and you'll be able to receive this $59.90 software for free!

In case you haven't heard about PQ Talking Photo, it allows you to convert your photos into animated characters. With a few clicks, you can animate many different types of photos and sync them to speech. With Christmas just around the corner, it's a great way to amuse your friends and family.


blogmyspacedvd to ipod video convertertalkingphoto, dvd to psp convertertalkingphoto, dvd to zunetalking photo album



If you're interested, you should act fast as this is a limited time offer that expires after Christmas. Head over .

 

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Is There A Need for OPENhulu?

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Over at last100, (this is a well-known dude on digg, etc) mentions that with rising in popularity, people were falling over themselves to get an invite. Supposedly, Hulu is a "highly exclusive closed" private beta that is open to only select individuals.

Inside the Hulu beta

Highly Exclusive? O Rly?

Like several others, I found this mildly amusing and surprising, since I received an invite 2 weeks back. While it's true that Hulu hasn't opened its doors to everyone, it wasn't terribly difficult to gain access. Here's what I did - enter my email address at Hulu and wait patiently for my invite. Was that really so hard?

OPENhulu - Hulu for everyone?

But we live in an era where we're pampered with instant gratification. Hence the post introduces someone named Matt, who came up with the bright idea of embedding Hulu videos on a site he created - you've guessed it - . By embedding the Hulu videos into the site, OPENhulu bypasses one aspect of Hulu's artificial limitations - the invite only requirement.

Inside OPENhulu

Nope...

However, that is about the only limitation that OPENhulu circumvents. If you're located outside the US, videos will still refuse to stream for you, leaving you with a nice message that reads "this video is not currently available in your country or region". I'm sure you should know by now that US ≠ world and OPENhulu is sadly only open to US folks.

What about US visitors that haven't gotten the memo? Well, the problem with OPENhulu is that only select TV series have been embedded. And by that, I mean a very small handful. 5 - 10% perhaps. So you can't actually watch everything Hulu has to offer on OPENhulu.

The alternative techniques

When Hulu first launched, I blogged about methods for bypassing Hulu's closed wall. One of them uses and allows you to watch the videos in full screen. However, these videos have no titles, which is a major inconvenience.

The other workaround is to view them on or . I believe that the full hulu collection is available on these partner sites. Unfortunately, you'll still need to be located in the US to view them.

So why do we need OPENhulu?

Is OPENhulu a solution looking for a problem? It sure looks that way especially with Hulu's partner sites providing the full catalog of Hulu videos. Maybe someone can enlighten me.

 

Never Underestimate The Other Guy's Guncon

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Reader Don Shellings just sent in 2 funny Time Crisis videos spoofing Scarface and Terminator. Without spoiling them for you, Scarface gets my vote as the better parody of the two.

Scarface



Terminator

 

Monday, December 10, 2007

Free: thesixtyone, Drawter

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Offtopic: Still no movement in the iPhone hackers camp. :( Meanwhile, development goes on, although a new release isn't expected soon. :D

thesixtyone

thesixtyone

Discover and vote for new music at . Listen to any song and if you like what you hear, bump it up. But don't go about bumping songs indiscriminately though. Each bump costs you some points which you'll earn back if the song gets bumped by others.

Earn points by sampling tracks sitting in the Rack (upcoming songs). As you accumulate points, your level increases and you can start to do cool stuff like multi-bumping a single song.

thesixtyone

Unlike most sites, thesixtyone provides full length songs (128kbps MP3) that are uploaded by the artists themselves. These are hosted on Amazon's servers so you can sit back, relax and enjoy the fast loading music.

While I was on the site, I noticed some familiar tunes like CSS's , which is currently looping on everyone's playlist. :) After listening to a couple of tracks, I actually discovered some that were worth hearing again. This was quite unexpected and surprising to me, as most music discovery services require some time to work successfully, despite my varied and fairly tolerant musical tastes.

thesixtyone is supported by donations and song purchases made through the AmazonMP3 service.

Drawter

is a HTML page creator with a twist. Instead of manually typing out everything, you draw it out on a canvas and it outputs the code for you.

Drawter

As you begin showing off your artistry in draw mode, don't worry about making any mistakes. Simply switch to edit mode, select an element to resize it or change its type. You can also add text content or edit its attributes and styles. When you're done, it's time to generate your code.

Drawter - code generated

The generated code is split into 3 sections - all site, HTML and CSS. All site displays the HTML code together with the CSS in the head tag (inline styles), while HTML and CSS show only the HTML and CSS respectively.

With support for HTML and XHTML as well as CSS, Drawter is a great tool for novices to create a site's layout with proper HTML or for pros to conceptualize a site's potential layout. However if you can't live without pixel prefect positioning, come prepared with some patience and mouse dexterity. Snap to grid would surely be a welcome feature in future versions of this handy tool.

 

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Free: ShortcutGuide, Fonts Of The Month

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Offtopic: Haven't had a "free" post for some time, so it's time to bring it back. :) No iPhone post today either, but things are mostly stagnant at the moment. Unless you consider baseless rumors interesting...

ShortcutGuide

ShortcutGuide Started by 2 grad students, ShortcutGuide is home to 952 shortcuts from a selection of 34 programs which includes desktop apps like Windows and iTunes and online apps like Gmail. Rather than simply listing the shortcuts, ShortcutGuide highlights possible key combinations on a virtual keyboard and describes their actions when you hover your cursor over a key.

Shortcuts are also categorized based on their actions and hovering over an action results in the key combination of the virtual keyboard being highlighted. It's these little touches that make ShortcutGuide a pleasure to use. However, while at the site, I noticed that one Windows shortcut - Win+D (toggle show desktop) - was not included. I didn't go looking for more missing shortcuts, but it looks like they have much to learn. :P

Smashing Magazine's Free Fonts of the month

Droid fonts

This month, looks at Relato Sans, Google Android fonts and the iPhone fonts. It may not be much to choose from but rest assured that they will look fantastic almost anywhere. I'm not sure which one I prefer since they're all fabulous.

 

Quick tk Google Charter Update

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tk Google Charter

At first glance, it looks like I just made some minor interface enhancements to like styling the text boxes and drop down lists. However, there's more to that than meets the eye. ;)

The most important functionality, the ability to generate line and bar charts, that was lacking in the last version was added, which means that all types of charts that Google Charts API handles are now supported by tk Google Charter.

If you have no idea what your selected chart type would look like, simply choose any one that you're interested in. After making the big decision, my frenzied coding squirrels will scurry away and churn out a pretty little demo chart just for you with a little help from the Google pigeons. (I instructed them to call it a preview chart, but they whispered to me that it was confusing, since there was another preview chart.)

Lastly, chart size was also split up into width and height. My intelligent squirrels agree that it's more intuitive than typing 300x200. Maybe I should feed them more nuts. Then I'll get more ideas and you'll get quicker updates.

Disclaimer: No frenzied coding squirrels were ill-treated in the development of tk Google Charter or this post.

 
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